Due credit, but

To the mild surprise of many (myself included), President Obama passed his first foreign policy test.

Steve Tefft

To the mild surprise of many (myself included), President Obama passed his first foreign policy test.

His handling of the hostage-taking by Somali pirates ended in the best possible way – with Captain Richard Phillips safe and three pirates dead. During the crisis’ first few days, Obama appeared weak and indecisive, and was unwilling to even answer a question about the developing situation. In retrospect, his silence was probably the right course. While the president kept quiet, the rescue plan was being honed and put into motion. The episode could have ended badly, but it didn’t. Still, let’s not overstate – or overrate – what happened. This wasn’t Dwight Eisenhower’s meticulously planned and executed Normandy invasion. Nor was it Ronald Reagan’s Grenada invasion or Ford’s retaking of the USS Mayaguez from Khmer Rouge thugs in 1975. This was sophisticated, high seas target practice, with the targets being low-level, young (at least one teenager), somewhat disorganized gangsters. Obama simply did what any president should do – listen to the counsel of advisors who are better versed about a given situation than he is, make the best choice and stick with it. But the pirate affair does serve to rekindle lingering questions of Obama’s toughness, or, put another way, his apparent instinct for passivity. Did he initially hold out against lethal force against the pirates? Was he talked into the rescue by tougher-thinking advisors (especially National Security Advisor James Jones)? The official version states Obama ordered the Navy to shoot to kill only if Captain Phillips’ life were in “imminent danger.” That suggests that Obama, lacking proof of “imminent danger,” might have let the situation fester for days or weeks. We probably won’t know the answers to these questions until after he leaves office and his underlings begin cashing in on book deals. Additionally, there are questions about Obama’s overall approach to foreign and national security matters and his behavior on the world stage. Of note: His embarrassing series of apologies and America-blaming during his European trip. The strange and demeaning bow to Saudi King Abdullah. His hearty handshake with Venezuelan punk Hugo Chavez. His Homeland Security Administration’s infantile banning of the terms “terrorist” and “war on terrorism” from department lexicon. And the HSA’s stupefying internal report on the alleged rise of so-called “rightwing extremist groups.” The report suggests a wide range of Americans – returning veterans, pro-lifers, people opposed to illegal immigration – merits close scrutiny, because they might become domestic terrorists. The report recalls the Clinton Administration’s attempts to blame the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing on conservative radio hosts; or, more recently, candidate Obama’s tut-tutting about those who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment." And none of the afterglow of the pirate affair resolution allays concerns about Obama’s approach to the economic crisis. He’s managed to triple our national debt in less than three months, and seems unable or unwilling to make the truly difficult choices necessary to right the economic ship….which, in the long run, is a much bigger and more important vessel than any pirate raft out of Somalia.